President Museveni (L) after commissioning Uganda’s first flight simulator in Entebbe on Friday where he said he will work with Russians. Photo by Martin Ssebuyira
Source Sunday Monitor,By Martin Ssebuyira &Risdel Kasasira
In Summary
The president asked Mr Obama to stay off Uganda’s decisions and said he will work with Russia instead.
Entebbe-President Museveni has said he will work with Russians because they don’t meddle in the internal affairs of other countries.
The comment follows US President Barack Obama’s statement that the relationship between his country and Uganda would be “complicated” if Museveni signs the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law.
However, while commissioning a new flight simulator at the air force headquarters in Entebbe on Friday, Mr Museveni told Obama to stop interfering in the affairs of Uganda, adding he will work with Russia instead of America.
“Russia has worked in Africa since 1917, meaning they have been here for more than 100 years. I want to work with Russia because they don’t mix up their politics with other country’s politics,” Mr Museveni said.
He added: “If you see a person going to another person’s home then you know there is a problem.”
“This is my home. You cannot find a man with a bald head like mine in his home and tell him what you want. Go back to your home,” he said in a veiled reference to President Obama.
“In Ankole, if you find such a thing happening, one will enter his house and pick his stick.”
Mr Obama’s warning came a day after President Museveni announced at the NRM party caucus retreat in Kyankwanzi last week that he would assent to the Bill after a presentation by Ugandan scientists concluded that homosexuality is not a genetic abnormality, but an adopted sexual behaviour.
An earlier statement from the White House in Washington quoted Mr Obama as saying: “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, once law, will be more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda.”
However, on Friday, Mr Museveni said: “I would like to discourage the USA government from taking the line that passing this law will ‘complicate our valued relationship’ with the USA as President Obama said.
He added: “Countries and societies should relate with each other on the basis of mutual respect and independence in decision making. Valued relationship cannot be sustainably maintained by one society being subservient to another society.”
Mr Museveni thanked Ms Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of former USA President Robert Kennedy and a human rights activist, who sent him opinions by scientists from the USA, saying there are some indications that homosexuality could be congenital.
PRESIDENT'S POSITION ON HOMOSEXAULITY
What Museveni doesn’t want: Those who agreed to become homosexuals for mercenary reasons (prostitutes) should be harshly punished as should those who paid them to be homosexual prostitutes.
Exhibitionism of homosexual behaviour must be punished because, in this part of the World, it is forbidden to publicly exhibit any sexual conduct (kissing, etc) even for heterosexuals; if I kissed my wife of 41 years in public, I would lose elections in Uganda.
His appeal to the US: I, therefore, would encourage the US government to help us by working with our scientists to study whether, indeed, there are people who are born homosexual. When that is proved, we can review this legislation. I would be among those who will spearhead that effort.
Waiting for clarification: The President said: “I have now received their (scientists from the Department of Genetics, the School of Medicine and the Ministry of Health) signed document, which says there is no single gene that has been traced to cause homosexuality.”
He added: “What I want them to clarify is whether a combination of genes can cause anybody to be homosexual. Then my task will be finished and I will sign the Bill.”
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